How to Write a Story Hour (by el-remmen)

[Emily Jones]

Excellent post is constructive to write a story.
the best part is
"1. Know What You Are Getting Into
I don’t want to be discouraging right out of the box, but any story hour author will tell you keeping up with a story hour is a hell of a whole lot of work. A hell of a lot of writing that requires a special kind of love and diligence. The history of this forum is strewn with the carcasses of abandoned story hours – people who started writing one up on a whim and were quickly overwhelmed, or people who got a good start but were discouraged by lack of feedback, those who thought they were like gods, but still got rocked – and look, there is nothing wrong with that – what you write is what you write and it is its reward – but if you really need to worry about the uses of your time, think long and hard before you begin. However much effort you think it will be? Well, it is actually ten times more than that… Which leads us to."

 

[ChrisKarter]

Is there a character count limit for post?

 

[The Green Hermit]

Is there a character count limit for post?

I haven't encountered one yet, but if there is it would be easy enough to tack on a continuation post.

 

[ChrisKarter]

That's good. I'm limiting myself to a 10,000 character limit per post because CDPR has a 10K character count limit and I want it to look identical on both sites.

 

[The Green Hermit]

That's good. I'm limiting myself to a 10,000 character limit per post because CDPR has a 10K character count limit and I want it to look identical on both sites.

Mine comes from a running journal on Google Docs that my players (aka my kids) help with. I make them write the initial part and then I fill it in. This helps me to know what parts stood out to them, even if it can sometimes cause me headaches as I try to smooth it out.

The Story Hour piece lets me add my own commentary, since neither of my kids will see it.

 

[el-remmen]

Nearly 15 years later I want to add another. . .


14. Give Your Story Hour a Content Warning
I just spent a good number of weeks of this seemingly endless pandemic reading through, editing, re-formatting, and reflecting on my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour. I just posted links to revised PDF versions! I loved being brought back to our sessions, even though here were parts of it made me cringe and choices I would not make now. And if I did make them now, I'd make sure to add a clear content warning so people know they are in for when choosing to start it and aren't surprised and upset when, for example, there are descriptions of gruesome graphic violence, discussion of sexual violence or rape, and representations of racism and racist language (like in mine). I'm not saying "don't write that stuff," (I still have some of those themes in my games), but make sure - like you'd do for your players around the table - that people know what they're buying into (generally speaking).

No one has actually complained to me, but we shouldn't have to wait till then.